Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Kids that don't have the initiative to learn, those are the scariest ones. For them, culture only exists in that small realm that has been drilled into them by the inane media. Adults too.I work in a haven for the bored where, for no cost beyond city taxes, you can check out up to 8 movies at a time to take back to your television.Typing a blog looks like work, reading a novel looks like I'm not working.The middle class in this country, even the "broke" lower-middle "working" class, which a bunch of white people who read blogs probably belong to, is fairly wealthy compared to the rest of the world. This ain't no picnic but it's not a gypsy camp in Belarus either. There are places like the Ogaden where no food will grow and the rest of the desert that has no water or a hint of the infrastructure necessary for it. But still somehow we dare to claim we are in a period of economic crisis. I'm thankful for my job. Just thankful.

Anyway, the computers at the library weren't working properly this morning. People complained. They made life hell for my co-workers. What could be so important on those computers to come in every day AND be such a jerk. People sat staring at blank screens until 45 minutes later when they miraculously came back on.I laughed at the scene, taking solace in having recently heard an indigenous resident of Alaska talking about our unsustainable culture. His consolation is that this shit can't last forever.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Joe Strummer was once quoted as saying that many of the songs he wrote for The Clash came from boredom. If only everyone were Joe Strummer in that way. I've found quite the opposite in people and what boredom does to their creative urges. So I started to write songs about boredom itself. The first of these came during Labor day weekend, 2007. I saw a barn in rural northern Missouri where someone had spray-painted "life without escape" in large letters across one side of the facade. That was art as far as I'm concerned, it got me to write a song.

It's a swampland, nothing to dobut watch the river and the trainsjust the sorghum and the soyBoredom - first comes boredomBoredom - next comes angerIt's the pilot's call whether it's safe wateror whether you should get outBoredom - then comes stupidMr. Clemmon's swearing in his grave

The second piece about boredom dwells in a more urban setting. Also last summer, right after Labor day, the police found a kid's body in a dumpster. He'd been shot and some other kids got arrested on suspicion. I didn't follow up[ on the rseults of the case. One has to figure these kids could not afford the video games that might satisfy these sort of urges in more privileged children.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

The famous massacre at Wounded Knee happened in the 19th century. This same place is an Indian reservation where, less than a hundred years later, the FBI caused a shoot-out with Leonard Peltier and others. Peltier was charged with the death of one of the government agents and taken from Canada to which he had escaped. He has been in prison for over 30 years, like many others, for political reasons. This is a part of the problem.This turned out to be the longest song I've ever recorded. There aren't that many words, but I tried to encompass a whole era of history into a couple short verses. Maybe this was my idea to re-do Neil Young's "Cortez the killer" for North America. A story that needed attention.During that same era of history wherein the first Wounded Knee massacre took place, there was a great labor struggle in the cities as well. Chicago's anarchists and socialists were organizing to strike for the 8-hour work day. Some contented themselves with this and hopes of higher wages and safer working conditions. Others advocated taking over factories, throwing out their employers by force and taking the means of production for the working class. Businessmen that owned the factories also had interests in the railroads to ship their raw materials and products. This connecting line, a train of thought so to speak, made me realize that the Indians were being pushed off their land by the same forces who were keeping the immigrants and the poor enslaved in the factories. This is another part of the problem. Marshall Fields was a motherfucker and I've never said that and meant it as a compliment. Evil white men who worship money like JP Morgan. We've heard their names, we should know what they did to the country.Albert Parsons gets a name-check in this song. He and other anarchists were framed for the bombing in Chicago's Haymarket in 1886. He escaped to Wisconsin to avoid arrest but later turned himself in to die at the gallows with three others in 1887.This, one of the last songs written for Bad Folk and recorded, leads to the next project I've recorded more recently. A folk-opera of sorts about Lucy Parsons, wife to Albert Parsons and leader in the struggle for worker's movements throughout her life.

WOUNDED KNEES (lyrics by Tim Rakel)

out on the plains, the ghosts of buffaloecho like thunderstorms, storms that no one hearsBlack Hills cleared to make wayfor the thunder of the white man's trainand out on the plainsthe ghosts of buffalo echo like thunderstormsa nation and all it's people are left with bloody handsa nation of people are left with two wounded knees

out on the plains, the storms still echofrom cold Chicago and through the Dakota fieldswhen they lose control, all they see is redthe immigrants every timeand the ones who were always hereand out on the haunted plainsand through the martial fieldsthe innocent flee northstumbling with two wounded kneesa nation and all it's people are left with Parson's bloodthe nation of Peltier are left with two wounded knees

Sometime around 2002 I saw this in neon. LAUGHTER (buzz buzz) SLAUGHTER (buzz buzz) LAUGHTER. Big red neon letters on a building in Grand Center, with the "S" flashing on and off like when you see a WAFFLE HO SE from the highway. I don't know who put it up, it was seemingly part of a gallery event in the neighborhood. That is art though, that which inspires thought and consequent art from others, so thank you unknown neon-light installation artist.What an insight into the strangely-related and hard-to-pronounce words of the English language.The line asking "will it take the bombs to wake us" was stolen from George Orwell's "Homage To Catalonia", I proudly admit it. His use of it was in reference to England's ambivalence to the civil war in Spain in the 1930s. The rest I would hope is self-explanatory, kind of a little anthem.

SILVER SPOONS AND PAPER PLATES (lyrics by Tim Rakel)

what gives you the right to laughter and slaughterdrank up the well, poisoned the waterand it seems like it will be a thousand yearsfor some people to be freeas apathy settles back in with the debriswill it take the bombs to wake us and open up our eyesor will we finally see the truth of how the other half diesthe rest of the world doesn't eatfrom silver spoons or paper platesand death is not some side effectin the search for the cheapest rates

what gives you the right to laughter and slaughterdrank up the well and poisoned the waterand it seems like it will be a thousand yearsfor some people to be freeas apathy settles back in, with the debriscut off the heads of state, use their corpses to fill the holein this lousy culture that they traded for your soulif they don't own you, you get called the enemyyou get called the enemy of ignorance and apathyand the rest of the worlddoesn't eat from silver spoons or paper platesand death is not some side effectin the search for the cheapest rates

Monday, December 15, 2008

This song came to me as a small piece of a larger world I'd created in my head while reading too many books at the same time. It's a terrible habit of mine. The title "Mechanical Lions" came from a story of the same name by Danilo Kis, who lived and died in what was then Yugoslavia.I was reading his collection of stories, "A Tomb For Boris Davidovic", in a park on the Vltava River in Prague. Really, it was a great vacation, drinking beer in three foreign countries with my brother and reading books while riding in trains and living in hostels."Crime and Punishment" was also in the trip's backpack until I left it behind in Ireland somewhere. But the biographical details of Fyodor Dosteovesky are there in the first part of the song. His father was choked to death by mutinous soldiers and he was himself in prison awaiting death by a firing squad. The second verse was filled in by scenes I saw in Krakow. A statue of a dragon outside a castle was rigged to breath flame for tourists but what I noticed most was the homeless people in Poland. Everywhere I went, people looked Czech or looked Irish, but here on the streets, these people could have been Indians or from India, I didn't know. Dirt makes people the same color and hides their former identities.The old men only appeared to me after I had crossed an ocean to get back home. In a color photograph I had taken looking one direction, there were two men walking towards me. In a black and white photograph, apparently taken a moment later with my other camera and facing the opposite direction, the men were now walking away from me. They had come towards me and passed while I fumbled with film advance levers and light meters. Anne Tkach, with whom I first shared the prints, identified the men in the pictures. I was taken aback. It made me think of all the other old ones that have passed while I fucked around not paying proper attention to their presence. So, this song has always been related to "Dead Trees" (see Part Of The Problem 7) in an indirect way. Perhaps the next thing is to figure out more pieces of the story from that alternate European world that existed in my head in those days.

MECHANICAL LIONS (lyrics by Tim Rakel)

father was murdered, they poured vodka down his throatpoured it down his throat until he gagged and chokedyou get into this frenzy with that stern look on your faceline up the firing squad, send me to a better placetwo old men were walking across the ancient bridgetwo old men were walking along the river's edgethey said go on shout your non-sense, that's fine with uskeep on shouting non-sense but make sure it's your own

there are dragons breathing fire outside the castle wallsthere are dogs wearing muzzles in the park belowthe gargoyles they look down from the holy churchand if that carpenter came back he'd get murdered againand the homeless look like they're not from around herelike angels, one moment they just appearand the prophets get met with mechanical lionsand old men are left wandering the streetsthey'll tell you everything you wish to knowyou just have to notice them there

it's a damn shame hearts are hidden never to be foundwhile material goods continue to aboundthey say thugs do the bidding, commit murder and do timethe state says that thinking is the most dangerous crimeso go on shout your non-sense, that's fine with uskeep on shouting non-sense but make sure it's your owntwo old men were walking across the ancient bridgetwo old men were walking along the river's edge

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Long memory is not quite the opposite of short-term memory. Most people lack both these days. You stare at computers all day and allegedly have access to every piece of information, then you become reliant and who cares what you can or can't remember without prompting.What if the power goes out? Then you head to the dimly lit bookstores. But those are mostly gone too. I've worked in those bookstores and libraries and seen the computers move in.A few years ago I worked with R. P. Dunaway, a man who had started a bookshop on Delmar when you could still travel by train and visit stores in other cities. That was the way you found things that didn't knock at your door and weren't generally available in your particular city. Pat, as his friends called him, knew books and loved them. Books should be more precious but they have become commodity like all art and knowledge in a capitalist society. The more obscure, the more valuable to the seller, despite the usefulness on the contents. Pat also knew history, partly because he had lived through so much of it, but also because he thought it important to learn and remember. He liked baseball and boxing too, pasttimes that have also endured. He cursed the computers and painted a funny picture of the future devolved man, with short arms only to reach the keyboard and big buggy eyes to see the bright screens.I showed up at work awaiting new stories or bits of history from him each day. When he died in September 2004, work became just another job. My disinterested ass got fired. There was a flashlight in his desk drawer which he used to see the titles on the bottom row of shelves. I took it, and on my next trip to Chicago, I brought it along. I left it on the still visibly upset spot in the ground where he'd been buried in Findlay, Illinois.

DEAD TREES

sit there keeping score, keeping track of everythingremember it all, always learningwatch the changes from behind the doorwalk content in the way you weathered itblock the punches, dodge the blowsand counter with your stance alonespend my days in a room, in a room full of dead treesleft a flashlight on your gravebecause it's dark and you'll need it to read

hundreds of people moving in front of methis progress it takes no carehundreds of peopleand all i can see is you who are no longer therespend my days in a room, in a room full of dead treesleft a flashlight on your gravebecause it's dark and you'll need it to read

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Stack shot Billy. I read the book about Stagolee by Cecil Brown, a great sliver of Saint Louis history. Before that I read "A Blues Life", an oral autobiography of Henry Townsend. He passed away two years ago at age 96. I saw him play a couple times, the only man known to record songs in every decade from the 1920s to the 2000s. Back in 2001, I started writing a song about the life of Henry Townsend. It was boring. Then I listened to Nick Cave's Murder Ballads record and it all came together when I recalled an incident from the autobiographical narrative. Henry Townsend was confronted in a bar a stabbed by another blues guitarist by the name of JD Short. Townsend recovered and borrowed a gun from a friend.Bucket Of Blood was the name of a bar in some versions of the Stagolee story so I threw that in the mix. Townsend took the weapon and went hunting through the house parties and bars to find Short. When he did, Short tried to flee but then stopped and pulled a knife. Townsend fired the gun and ended up shooting Short in the testicles. That's what happened. Sometimes revenge that does not kill might hurt even worse than death.

BUCKET OF BLOODHenry he hopped that north-bound trainjumped off in the yard in east st louishenry was a shoeshine boyfronting for that bootlegging man downtownhenry learned to play that mean guitarhenry learned to play that sweet guitarhad some folks jealous with the way that he played

JD Short got him in the backthat coward with a knife got him in the backHenry was a bleeding he nearly diedwhen that coward snake got him in the backhenry wanted to take his revengewent hunting JD Short through all the jointscornered him at the bucket of bloodHenry stepped up and short pulled his knifeHenry drew his gun and he took a shotShort jumped up yelled and fell downHenry left the yard same way he'd come inShort lay bleeding hurting on the ground

henry he's an old man nowstack-a-lee's been long dead nowwith many a song to sing and many a tale to tellthe city henry knew it ain't there no morethe booker washington theatre been torn downthe city henry knew it ain't here no more

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The Bonnot Gang invented the getaway car. That's what I tell people to hook them because it hooked me. Richard Parry wrote a book about them in the 1980s that is hard to find but well worth reading. The gang of French anarchists, named for the oldest member of the group Julius Bonnot, was active around France before the first World War, roughly 1909-1913 until they all were arrested or killed. Victor Serge was there and went to prison with members of the gang for various crimes against the state. Serge, or Victor Kibalchich by birth, is a fascinating historical figure, novelist and poet. Look him up, you'll learn something.Anyway, the workers and criminals of France started stealing cars from wealthy estates at night so as to flee more quickly when they robbed banks the next morning. Twentieth century innovation not too long after the development of the assembly line mode of production.Bad Folk's drummer, Anne Tkach, once remarked that I tended to write songs about cars like they were a disease. I sure ain't Bruce Springsteen.

DEBTyou've been hurrying, don't you see that light aheadyou've been hurrying, don't you see that light is redyou've been hurrying, don't you see you'll drop down deadslaves to that gold chain, wrapped around your neckdragged down in debtcrime doesn't pay but neither does your jobcrime doesn't pay but neither did your job

you get carried away, now you'll never repay this debtthis debt that you oweyou settle down, you settle for this devilthis devil you knowfallen behind, barely started, fallen behind, barely startedfallen behind, dragged down in debtcrime doesn't pay but neither does your jobcrime doesn't pay but neither did your job

it's what keeps you down, it's what keeps you upthis struggle is a very old warBonnot is outside waiting with the getaway carmaybe we'll make it out alive, maybe life will just pass you byslaves to that gold chain, wrapped around your neckdragged down in debt

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Mark Stephens first told me the bug story. My various bands have been fortunate to share the stage with his various bands over the years and one night at Lemmon's, we stood there unwrapping microphone cables. He stood, wearing a blue jump suit with a Monsanto patch on one breast and the name "Russ" embroidered over the other. Our mutual friend, Ross Lessor, gave Mark the outfit and kept one for himself. They were heirlooms from Ross' uncle who had worked with pesticides all his life and died alone out in the country in a house infested with bugs. Mark told me the story and I said it sounded like he should write a song about it. He told me it was more a song I would write. So I did. Then Ross gave me the primary account. Turns out I had filled in details close enough to the truth. Fiction is less strange than fact in this case and that's probably why this was easy.The images stuck in my head for weeks. Uncle Russ in his house with a septic tank out back. Then the carpentry scenes to get away from the old place which was infested with bugs. A new house also infested. Then the horror movie end with neighbors and flashlights discovering the body. Afterwards, Ross went there too and couldn't stay the night for all the bugs, which he described as looking like aliens from outer space.Bad Folk recorded the song. Jason Rook took his tape recorder and got some scab frogs to sing the part. We rejected it. He went back and got union crickets. Turns out Belgrade, Missouri has a fine cricket choir scene. More recently, a benign cricket infestation appeared in my basement where Bad Folk had rehearsed.

Bugs

old man worked for the chemical companywhen he retired moved out to the countrythat old house on the river was infestedcalled on the phone and siad he had to moveall those years in a blue jump suit, working for the chemical companymixing, fixing to kill, mixing pheromones with the poisonthat's how you kill them, attract them to the posionone last phone call from that old manthe bugs are killing me

old man worked for the chemical companymixing, fixing to killall those years making DDT until he himself radiates itbuilt a new house every step by handnew wood, new ground, up on a hillbut these things are futile if you've been mixing to killthat's how you kill them, attract them to the posionone last phone call from that new housethe bugs are killing me, he said

and the heart attack was from the shock of how well it workedand how they'd come for him in the endat the end of that dirt roadthe bugs are killing me he saidand the neighbors found him deadshine a light on this infestationexterminator down

When I first met Hunter Brumfield, Chris King was there. He has recounted some stories about Hunter in his blog Confluence City. He encouraged me to write about Hunter so I will from time to time among many others who must have their turn too. Chris was there and so were a number of Ogoni people, refugees from the oil-related destructuion in Nigeria. Hunter was the white dude dancing in the black church (quite literally, one of the first times I met him). He told me about spray paint and train hopping before Upski published his book. When all my college friends were reading "Bomb The Suburbs", I pointed out that William Wimsatt's friend "Hunter" was that guy that waited on us at Mangia. They blinked. Hunter told me a lot of stories when we talked. It wasn't that I didn't believe all of them, I was just continually amazed when they were supported later with evidence from an unexpected direction.

Cut to nearly ten years later, my bandmate Joey Gavin did some basement recording with Hunter. He called the space Cricket Studios. Bugs will always be around, even in a place as irrelevant as a studio name. Hunter and Lindy Woracheck (another bandmate at the time and friend of Hunter) documented some great musical moments that day. Hunter killed himself a couple weeks later. Joey and I made copies of the poor quality CD and passed them out.The last thing I did was take one of those songs for myself and started playing it with the band Bad Folk. For me, it was a song he wrote about himself and I could sing it about him. People that don't know him sometimes think it's mine. Small compensation.

The Laughing Song (lyrics by Hunter Brumfield III)

He's sorry that things turned out as they did, it's a god-forsaken shamesmall was the box in which that he hid to temper his poisonous brainhe reached for the stars, came back with stumps (maybe stubs?)in a downpour, yearning for rain (though i was told "urine" was the lyric, i thought "yearning" more poetic and gave Hunter credit for the ambiguity)happiness got him once he hit bottomgonna laugh his way through all the pain

Believe him it's easy to drink and be sleazyas your conscience just limps alongmistaking freedom for license, he screamed in the silenceand his echo said boy you're all wrongwell, life is absurd, haven't you heard?keep laughing boy, that's your best bet

Monday, December 1, 2008

"War Is The Health Of The State" said Randolph Silliman Bourne, a man of crippled physical stature but immense awareness of history and society. It was the first World War and here was a man, like those damned anarchists, who claimed that no good would come to the common person in any country involved in conflict. Whether it was outright imperialist plunder or something disguised as a more benign mission to save someone or some imagined value or way of life, the common soldier would die and the common worker would work (or become a solider and then die). Profits from war industry would be pocketed by those already wearing fat, greedy pants. Whatever small victory that could be claimed would not fix the psychological damage of the victor. Fuck the losers, we won't even speak of their fate. In the end, the original goals of the conflict would probably be forgotten as lies, as more heaps of lies obscured whatever people once thought their country was fighting for.

The poor confused soldier, perhaps a young man scorned, who enjoys firing his gun at the midnight hour of new year's eve and is prone to a revenge killing if given the chance.

I didn't know the name Osama Bin Laden in the year 2000 and I'd nearly foregotten Saddam Hussein. I imagined the Frankenstein monster as an Italian gentlemen with the given name of Luigi.

I wanted that man to die for what he did to meI had my heart set on killing Luigimy country started a war, they told me to take a standI said what did you go and do that for, I only want to kill one manBut I up and joined their ranks to see if I could seefrom the planes and from the tanks that bastard LuigiI killed ten men and maybe more and that was just the first daymore batallions topped the hill and I blew them all away

I walked amongst the corpses wandering how it could bethat I'd killed so many men and not shot Luigiyes, I killed so many men that honors they bestowedthen they said we won the war and to me that they owedI said wait a minute, what about LuigiI have not won a war if still that man goes freesomething still wasn't right a voice spoke in my headso I hunted Luigi down and shot the bastard dead

they people they were outraged, they cursed my bloody namethey said that I had broken the rules of their gameI showed them my medals but they just shook their headsthey dragged me to the guillotine, they say they want me dead

Call the doctor or the wrecking ball mango to hell or the thorn crown mantorn and tattered taped togetherthis hell, this hell of mirrorschallenged myself to a duelshot out my own heart

send up the red flags and then the whitenow it's just a maze, a maze of states and tribessee the roadside signs, souvenirs of this lifetranslation's lost and everything is fineand as long as they preserve that state of fearthey'll tell you these things at the same time

i came from the old world, that twisted old worldthe ship sank behind me, that war rose behind mecome across the ocean to get awaybut this, this new worldnothing, nothing could prepare me for thishold my heart in your handsit'll keep them warm for a little while

the crowds have gone got what they wantedsomeone's watching me now followed and hauntedsee the roadside signs and try to denythere's nothing at the end of this roadjust motels and lonelinessacross a whole continentthis hell, this hell of mirrorschallenged myself to a dueland shot out my own heart

Dual (lyrics by Tim Rakel)(with a Nabokovian self-analysis by T. S. Rakehell)If you think the title is spelled incorrectly, please read further for the mundane pun herein

Call the doctor or the wrecking ball mango to hell or the thorn crown man Catholic guilt, morbiditytorn and tattered taped togetherthis hell, this hell of mirrors thinks he's funnychallenged myself to a duelshot out my own heart the pathetic author's first attempt at getting attention with threats of killing himselfsend up the red flags and then the white some vague reference to Russian history to mark the setting, poorly researchednow it's just a maze, a maze of states and tribes more place marking, little developmentsee the roadside signs, souvenirs of this lifetranslation's lost and everything is fine the author claims he woke from a dream about a gun fight to find his cat striding away from an open volume of Nabokov's translation of Eugene Onegin on the bedroom floorand as long as they preserve that state of fearthey'll tell you these things at the same time the same time being another reference to duality, the "state of fear" is just more slander of the American dream and the country in generali came from the old world, that twisted old worldthe ship sank behind me, that war rose behind mecome across the ocean to get away this is another poorly researched and vague reference to Nabokov's personal history, wherein his family sailed from Europe during the great war. Their former apartment building was bombed in their absence and the ship was sunk by hostile fire in its return journeybut this, this new worldnothing, nothing could prepare me for this just more slander of the United States. The author should move to Switzerland as did his beloved Nabokov.hold my heart in your handsit'll keep them warm for a little while morbid, just morbid, another desperate cry for attention on the part of hack of a writer

the crowds have gone got what they wantedsomeone's watching me now followed and haunted an all too obvious reference to the plot of Lolita and more of the same followssee the roadside signs and try to denythere's nothing at the end of this roadjust motels and lonelinessacross a whole continentthis hell, this hell of mirrorschallenged myself to a dueland shot out my own heart just couldn't bear to end it without more drama and suicidal references

--- the author bears no responsibility for his critics or any harm done to them

Appendix:

Russian translation, back to English:

Double (lyric poetry Tim Rakel) summon doctor or destroying man of ball go to hell or man of the crown of thorns stripped and tattered connected by braid together this hell, this hell of mirrors call to the duel taken to outside my own heart desertedly send upward by the emblems of revolution and after this to the whiteness now of it' s exactly labyrinth, labyrinth of positions and gears sees the signs of curb, the souvenirs of this life of translation' lost s and everything is excellent and as far as they preserve the position of the fear of they' ll tells you these things in also the time I it arrived from the old peace, that interlaced old peace the ship sank after me, which war raised after me it comes through the ocean to obtain away but this, this new peace nothing, nothing could prepare me for this you hold my heart in your hands of it' ll hold by their warm for few thus far crowd dispatch what they they obtained wanted someone' by s observing me now it followed after it pursued it sees the signs of curb it tries to refuse there' s nothing at the end from this road exactly of [moteli] and solitude through entire continent this hell, this hell of mirrors is been cast call to the duel and is taken at outside my own heart

French translation, back to English

Combine (texts by Tim Rakel) Appelez the doctor or l' man of destruction of ball go to l' hell or with l' man of crown d' spine torn and torn in scraps attached of the adhesive tape together this hell, this hell of the mirrors disputed to a duel drawn outside my own heart send to the top of the red flags and then white now it's right a labyrinth, a labyrinth of the states and tribes see the signs of roadside, memories of this life translation lost and all is very well and as long as it preserves this state of fear they indicate these things at the same time I came from the Old World, this Old World twisted that the boat is descended behind me, that the war raised behind me find l'ocean to leave but this, this new world nothing, nothing could prepare me for this hold my heart in your hands it maintains hot them for a little while obtained crowd went this qu' they wanted someone observing followed now and haunted see the signs of roadside and try to deny therenothing with l'end of this road right motels and loneliness through a whole continent this hell, this hell of the mirrors disputed to a duel and drawn outside my own heart

Sunday, November 30, 2008

I have added the blogs of some people i actually know in real life to the side of the page. see what they say too. I can see how this can occupy one's time. Also, i'm doing this at work. Does that make it more subversive or more predictable?

With some regret, I step off the cliff of willful technological ignorance. It has sustained me so many years but now all my friends have robots.

My various musical endeavors will now have an explanatory outlet here. As physical media dies its slow death and my pockets fill up with more discarded books and records, i'll try to share what i find interesting.